We are about ready

Tuesday, June 2

We got what little we had taken home with us packed and loaded up the cats. We were on the road shortly after eight. The cats still don’t like their carriers or the car, they talk all day. When we stop for an early lunch in northern Iowa the temperature was 58 degrees. We later learned the high in St Louis Tues. was at noon and 88 degrees. Obviously this was two different air masses. As we drove south we found rain about Iowa City and by the MO. border it was bands of very heavy rain. By Hannibal we were out of it and into warm humid air, but the black clouds
looked like they were chasing us.

We got all our “stuff” carried from the car down to the boat. Then we took our lemonade to the fly bridge, enjoyed a light breeze and watch as the black clouds rolled in with lots of lighting. We finally had heavy rain and decided to adjourn to the cabin for a light dinner and then collapse. Boy is heavy rain loud when you are under a metal roof.

For those of you that are aware that my ICD battery is running low, I had it checked on Monday and although the doctor would like to check it every two months, we agreed that it was still strong enough that there was very little risk in my being gone for four months.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Why is it that every time we drive down to St Charles to get on the boat we have monsoons? This is three trips in a row over the last two years. It rained most of the night, St Louis report .92 inches for the day yesterday. If there is any good news, it is that most of this rain was in the Mississippi watershed not the Illinois. The Miss is forecast to go back up a couple of feet, but it was well below flood. The Illinois which is in flood is still forecast to continue to go down, just not as fast.

We went to town to shop today and got enough grocery to last well into the trip (if the boat doesn’t sink). Then we came home to put it all away. After a late lunch Diana continued stowing things and I went out for a wash down of the boat. It is unbelievable how dirty it gets in three weeks.

After work Scott B, from Wahoo stopped by and we fired up the engines and went out for a short test drive. It was the first of the year for me and neither of us had tried the thrusters. The Yanmar diesels ran just as fine as last year and the new thrusters lived up to all my expectations and then some. The controls for both thrusters are in a single controller (basically a boat shaped joy stick) that is very intuitive to use. I drove going out and Scott drove coming back in. The total control provide is difficult to describe, we are in the slip closest to shore with a crosswind blowing toward that shore, we were able to rotate the boat quickly and move it sideways into the wind almost effortlessly. We were both impressed.

The one item that remains to be seen is what effect the added weight and turbulence from the hole thru the bow have on performance. I will be checking that and reporting in the coming weeks.

Thursday, June 4

It is Thursday morning as I post this. The plan for today is to finish up a laundry list of small details and then if the weather forecast holds and there is no major change in the Illinois River level forecast we will finally be off for the first day of our summer long adventure early Friday morning.